The apartment was trash, stains on the carpets, beer, blood, and Price didn’t care to guess what else. This was his first time here, but Jen had been here any number of times and told him what to expect, saying, “It’s a trap house, it’s not nice.” And then she knocked.
“Jenn-ay,” said the man who opened the door. Portly, with a doughy face above a set of decent shoulders, he stood about an inch shorter than Price, the look on his face the same as the one Goofy pulled when he drove his cartoon car too fast. “Y’all got here quick. Who’s the fella? Jim, isn’t it?”
Jake held out his hand. Price studied it for foreign matter before taking it and giving it a light pump. Heavy and soft, doughy, but thankfully not wet. Jake took his hand back and moved aside so the two could enter his apartment.
“C’mon in folks. She told my name’s Jake.” Still looking at Price, he led them to a round kitchen table. Two men were sitting on the couch, one black, one white. The white guy looked strung out. The black guy did not. He looked like someone to worry about.
Jake noticed Price’s concern. “That’s Chris and Roger. They’re my boys, it’s cool.”
The three sat down and looked at each other. Price leaned back in his seat so he could keep the men on the couch in his periphery. Jen reached into her coat. A quarter ounce of meth amphetamine landed on the table just within Jake’s reach.
“Cash,” she said.
Jake looked at Price, then turned to his boys. Price turned and saw both men get up. Good enough for him. Lashing, he frogged Jake’s temple with the two large knuckles in his fingers and then stood up to face the other men, a pistol in his hand.
Jen slapped the table. “Sit, all of you, now.”
Jake rubbed his temple, a tear sliding from the corner of his eye. “I was just playin’ man, shit. I was testing new guy’s nuts. I see he gots ‘em.” He waved at Roger and Chris. “Chill, y’all, it’s cool. I earned that.”
Jen scoffed. “You think I’d mess with someone who didn’t?” She moved to take back her product and Jake threw two hundred dollars at her hand. She sneered. “You’re lucky my brother likes you, Jake. I’ll see myself out.”
But it was Price who saw her out. His eyes never left the men in the room behind him. Once he and Jen were clear of the place, she stopped Price and kissed him. “I love you. You make me feel regal.”
Price cupped her face. “Fuck that guy. I’m surprised he didn’t piss himself.”
“He’s jealous, babe. That’s why he flexed on us.” Price watched her face screw up into a lemon. “When I used to come here myself, he’d try to hook up, right? Ick.”
They got into the car. Her porcelain face and leather jacket, her tight jeans and everything in them, Price couldn’t get enough. From customer to cock-provider in only a few months. The cop friends he left behind would have been astounded if they saw him now. Last year, he would have busted her. Now, he was all over her.
She nibbled his neck. “You’re not going to turn me in?”
“I’d sooner turn myself in.” He kissed her earnestly, refraining from fucking her in the backseat right then and there. She pulled a plastic bullet out of her jacket, turned the crank on it, and held it up for Price. He inhaled, and the bullet went back in her pocket.
“Get us out of here and let’s go somewhere I can crawl on you.”
Grinning, Price started the car.
***
Anthony Aames was not an easy man to impress. Most of the people he met were junkies. The man showing him the huge cache of guns in the basement of a house that looked like the small ranch cottage he and Jen grew up in impressed the hell out of Aames. So many guns. A wall of AR-15’s and other assault rifles. Sights in a box on the tool table. There were bottles of what looked like anti-freeze huddling in one corner. And spread across the concrete wall, a banner, professionally made that read, Let’s Motivate America. Eagle and Cross Rifles. Aames already liked this guy and he’d only known him for a few minutes. His name was Ben, and Aames had met him in a chatroom.
Ben stuck a small key into a metal box on the tool table and opened it. “Have a look.”
Grenades. Ten, by Aames’ count. “Holy shit, Ben. We could corner the game, bro.”
Ben laughed. “Not the whole game. Maybe carve out a niche. Show some juice.”
Aames reached for one of the AR-15’s. “May I?”
“Do,” Ben said. Aames held the rifle as if it were a woman. He checked the sight. Pulled the bolt on an empty chamber and ratcheted nothing. But he could imagine it. “I know exactly what I want to do with this thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Get me about fifteen pill presses. Some pure fetty. Bust it down with some ice and press it up and sell us some goofballs.”
“Drugs.”
“You don’t approve?”
“I don’t do them. I suppose that would make me a great partner for you.”
The phone buzzed. Aames plucked it from his pocket and frowned at it. “Shit. Nothing better be wrong.” He answered it. “What you want Jake?”
Jake told him about Price.
“Alright. I’ll take care of it. We’re still on, right?” Aames nodded and hung up the phone and looked at Ben. “Looks like I got to handle some in-house garbage.”
“Need me to ride?”
Aames smiled. This guy was eager. “No. I can handle it.”
***
Jen went in before Price and saw Aames approaching fast. He did not look pleased. She moved out of the way for Price to enter and as she heard him close the door Aames said, “Hi, Jenny,” then backhanded her across the mouth.
Price saw her fall. Turning to fight, he faced the black eye of a .9 mm pistol, cold metal almost touching his eyeball. Price looked at Jen. She rubbed her face, her jaw red. Angry more than hurt. Price ground his teeth hard enough to make them squeak.
Aames leveled the pistol. “See that? That’s how things are kids. Objections?”
Price and Jen said nothing. Neither could hide the rage on their faces. A tear escaped Jen’s eye and her mouth quivered. Price gripped the nape of his neck and squeezed.
“Quit your snarling and sit down. Go on.” Aames, looking at Price, pointed at the couch with the pistol. Price sat down. Jen walked around Aames’ blind spot without making a move. Aames didn’t bother to look at her. His eyes owned Price right now, the real threat.
“I can’t have y’all beat on that idiot.” Aames put the pistol in the back of his jeans and sat down next to his sister. He reached under the coffee table and pulled out a cigar box. “Let’s have us all a chill out. I’ll tell y’all what I got going on.” He looked at Price.
“You been around a few months.” Aames pulled out a snap bag full of powder and opened it. He poured a little on the table and gestured for Price to finish the job. “You still a cop?”
“No.” Price anticipated this conversation. “I don’t think I ever wanted to be. I like doing things my way. I like having fun too much, I guess.” He bent to the task Aames laid out for him.
“I like you being around Jen. I like that my sister has protection. I could learn to like you. But you can’t beat on folks without my say so. And Jake is not on my say so. I can’t have that boy upset. He’s my only way to get these pill presses.” Aames sighed. “Y’all like money, don’t ya? I met someone else today that could help us turn the game up.”
Price leaned back on the couch, falling into analgesia. Goddammit. He wanted to be mad. He wanted to grab Aames by both ears and slam his ratty face into the coffee table. Price had never sat still for anyone who hit a woman, much less his woman. He watched Jen, who was bending to her own task that Aames laid out on the table. When their eyes did meet, hers were glassy, pleading. But when they broke eye contact and she turned to Aames, they froze over.
Aames slid the bag closer to Price with one finger. “Why don’t y’all take that and take off? Here.” He reached into his back pocket and threw two Franklins on the table. “Take that too. Go somewhere nice.”
Jen snatched the money off the table and stood up.
Aames held his hand out for Price to shake. “Square?”
Price shook it, tasting oil. He followed Jen out the front door with bubbles in his shoes, floating, guilty, angry, effectively castrated, and when Jen hurried away from him toward the hallway stairs, his heart sank.
“Babe.”
She started down the stairs and he ran to catch up.
“Wait, dammit.”
On the stairs she did. Tears spilled down the sides of her face. She grabbed Price’s jacket and pulled him close. Her eyes darted over his.
“Fuck my brother up. I don’t care how. You hear me? Fuck my brother up.”
The gears in Price’s head began to turn. Instead of speaking, he led Jen down the stairs to the front exit. They couldn’t discuss something this sensitive in such close proximity to the intended victim, especially not one like Aames. He might know.
***
Well, his lover did say she didn’t care how he did it, after all.
Therefore, when he sat across from Special Detective Marcus Hugo, Price felt no guilt. Paranoia, yes—they were at Waffle I-Ron, and often enough when he ate here Price saw familiar faces. If any of Aames’ customers happened by and recognized Price, they might relay the information as plain old gossip. They wouldn’t know his past, wouldn’t even think about what they were doing but Aames might do his own math. Luckily, Hugo anticipated this. He dressed down, wearing a deathcore tee shirt and a field coat. Blue jeans. It did not scream cop.
Hugo studied Price for a moment. “Eyes aglow behind raccoon rings. Very chic. You look like a junkie, Jimmy.”
“So do you, and I appreciate it. How’s things?”
“Same. What do you want, Jim?”
“To give you a bust.”
“Guy you’re working for now?”
Price said nothing.
“You didn’t know I knew that did you? You should have.”
“I didn’t think you were that interested in me.”
“An ex-cop who got fired for snorting evidence, yeah. I’m interested. Cops do that only go a couple of ways. Mostly, they go to prison, which isn’t fun. Others? They try out private investigation. I wanted to see which one you’d do. Looking like the first one. You’re working for Anthony Aames. Fucking his sister, no less. I don’t blame you. Girl’s tighter than a bow string.”
Price ate it all. He didn’t mind eating shit from Hugo. “You wouldn’t know what I got for you. You can’t know. I only found out for myself about three hours ago. Aames is about to graduate from dealing to manufacture.”
“Ice?”
“Rainbow fetty.”
“Ho-ho.” Now Hugo was interested. “Tell me more.”
“Immunity,” Price said. “For whatever you’ve seen. I don’t go down for shit. Neither does Jen. You get Aames and the jackasses he works with. You know Jake Sams. And whoever else happens to be there during the buy. Jake had a couple of dudes with him yesterday. And Aames said he met someone. So, who knows?”
“Jake Sams? He’s a punk. He just got out a few months ago.”
“Well, he must have met some guys inside who have the hook up on pill presses. They were there yesterday. Name of Chris. And Roger.”
“Dope?”
“Aames has dope. I think he has everything he needs to cook or a line on it. Just needs the presses.”
“That way he can turn all his work into twenty-dollar pills instead of ten-dollar points. It makes sense.” Hugo whistled. “That’s a big deal, Jim.”
“I know it.”
“Sky’s the limit on the charges in a bust like that if we find him with a machine and dope in his system.” Hugo grinned. “He’s on parole too. For all of me you got your amnesty. If the D.A. greenlights it, what do you have in mind?”
“Basic. I tell you when the show starts. You crash the afterparty.”
“Wire?”
“Hell no. I’ll tell you when it’s going down and you be there.”
“I can’t just bust up on everyone without probable cause.”
Both men had a loud laugh at that.
***
Jen followed her brother up the stairs to Jake’s place for the second time in sixteen hours, a thirty-dollar mini mic clipped to her bra. She felt the thin wire that Price taped to her back this morning tickling her spine. The wire itself trailed through a little hole in the back of her jeans that led to the interior of her back pocket and from there into the phone, also in her back pocket. Right where it always was. As far as she could tell, Aames was clueless. That feeling lasted until they reached the top of the stairs.
“You act different,” Aames said as they approached Jake’s apartment. “I don’t think I like your boyfriend. He’s a bad influence on you. Making you mouthy.”
Jen didn’t say a word. But she did smile at her brother as if to say is this more like it?
“That doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me. Is he turning you against me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Did he get you to turn cop?”
“No, Tony. My jaw’s sore.”
“I’m sorry Jenny. I didn’t mean it. I just need this guy…” She stopped listening to his line of horseshit. She knew he had no real respect for her. Price, if she allowed it, would be the fifth lover of hers to be run off by her possessive brother. She shuddered to think on what sort of sick business was being discussed amongst the voices in his head. The way he looked at her sometimes, especially when he was high on speed, made her nauseous.
“Are we good, sis?” Stupid puppy dog eyes.
“Gold,” Jen said. Aames grinned and, rather than knock, tried Jake’s door. It opened. He turned back to his sister with a loopy grin on his face and they went in.
When Jake and his boys saw Aames and Jen they froze. Jake looked like he wanted to be angry. Instead, he stood and said, “Tony, Jen, hey. I was fixing to call y’all.”
“My press here?” Aames watched Roger and Chris before looking to Jake. “I want to see it.”
“Well, I—”
“Gave you two hundred bucks worth of dope,” Aames finished for him. “Or did you forget you saw me last night after you saw these two? You got my press or what?”
Chris and Roger looked ruffled, but neither moved.
“I gotcha man, chill out.” Jake flicked his cellphone to life and brought up a video of the three cahoots using the tablet press. He handed the phone to Aames, who watched as his three hosts operated the machine as if it were easy. He sat down on top of the table and frowned, having trouble calculating how to use the contraption even with the video in his face.
But. “I want that, y’all. How much?”
Chris sat down across from Aames. “I gotcha. They’s mine. I got about seven of the muh-fuckers. I could part with one for the right price.”
Aames sniffed. “I’m looking at what, about five gees?”
“More like seven,” Roger said.
Aames turned to him. “Should I be talking to you?”
“Shut up, Rog.” Chris offered the olive branch of his handshake to Aames. “Name’s Chris. I’m coming up in this game myself.”
Aames handed Jake back his phone. “You want to work with me?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Fair. So, what, five?”
“Five’s cool.”
“I got a van. I’ll come get it. Where?”
“Imma shoot you a text with the details. Say right around now tomorrow, two o’clock.”
Aames regarded Jake. “You sure have grown up a lot.” He grinned at Chris and hooked his thumb at Jake. “Taller, but he was always this chubby, guys.”
“Knock that shit off, Tone.” Jake looked at his boys. “It’s good, I grew up with this dude. What you were, two grades ahead of me?”
“Yep.”
Jen did not say that she had shared three classes with Jake Sams, none of them pleasant. As a child, he’d been the master of the armpit fart and had once cut off her ponytail. Aames broke his nose for doing it. Jake was one of those guys who, if you kick his ass, he wants to be your little sycophant. Over the years he met a lot of people, club people with drugs. Had he not been a junkie himself, Jake could have been a ghetto millionaire at 24.
As it stood, he was just a schmuck.
“I’m bored,” Jen said.
Aames laughed. “There she is. Been a bit sour all day. Glad to see you’re back.”
She flipped him off.
“I guess we’re gonna git,” Aames said. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow.
In the hallway, Aames paused at the landing and shook his head at Jen. One eye squinted, and he shook his index finger at her. He opened his mouth and a half a word fell out before laughter overtook it. Finally, he caught his breath and started down the stairs, whistling. Jen stayed two steps behind him. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Aames waited for his sister at the exit.
He opened the door for her. “You can’t do that, Jen. You can’t make me look that way in front of people I don’t know. You’ll give them the OK to shoot us, you feel me?”
Jen suppressed a sneer. She wasn’t sure why she was so mad at him for hitting her. Part of her didn’t even want to be. Her soft side, what remained of it, asked her if she didn’t just want to delete the file and tell Jimmy no way, I can’t do it. He wouldn’t be mad.
“I understand, Tony.”
“You sound like a kid right now.” Aames nodded at the opening and Jen went through it. She felt him behind her and hoped that her jacket didn’t ruck up enough for him to see that her phone was plugged into something he couldn’t see. If he saw anything he said nothing, and they got into the car and drove off without incident, Jen keeping her weight off the fragile device in her pocket.
***
An hour after Price sent Hugo the sound file, the call came.
“I’d have preferred to lay eyes on that video, Jim. But I’m also not a dingbat. I’ll be watching. And listening. Hook your girlfriend up again and—”
“No, Marc. Me. I’m doing the hard parts this time.”
“No. It’ll be a lot easier for Jen to make an excuse where she can put herself in a position to take a picture of that machine than you. She can fake urgent needs. You try that, see if it works.”
Price hung up. Jen, perhaps in order to remind Price of her womanhood, sat on his lap and snaked a languid arm over his shoulders. She planted a like kiss on his lips. “Honey, I don’t even know if he’s going to want us to go.”
“Yes, he will. He’ll want at least two extra sets of fists. Jake has goons, Tony needs some too. No one’s going to expect him to show up alone, not with that much money on the line.” He chuckled. “Level we’re at, five grand’s a lot of money.”
Jen scoffed. “I want to do better than this. You know he’s never going to stop coming after us after this. Not unless you kill him. I don’t want you to kill him, Jimmy.”
Price buried his observations in her kiss, and they moved to the bed.
***
They met in the back of the city, among shredded, empty buildings with broken windows like black eyes lifeless from staring at the same desolate street for centuries. Nothing back here belonged to anyone anymore. Jen thought of ways to take a slick picture of the machine, a tablet press Jimmy called it. “When you get a chance, snap a pic of the press,” he’d said before they met up with Aames. “It doesn’t have to be a good picture. Just enough so they can tell what it is.” And next, find a cool place to shoot a text. To the cops. Low risk.
Easy, right?
Aames cruised through a parking lot full of cracks and potholes. “Y’all don’t let me get shot, now. God. Look at this place. In space, no one can hear you scream right? Same goes for the edge of the hood.”
“It’s the void,” Price said. “Looks like the end of civilization.”
“The apocalypse, yep.” Aames laughed a lightly elbowed Price in the ribs. “Y’all ever patrol down here when you were a member of the swine party?”
“No,” Price said, and it was true. Chris, whoever he was, knew his spots.
“Only folks down here are us and the bums. And here’s our machine.”
They turned left again, this time behind the warehouse, and Jen doubled over, holding her belly. “Jim. Jimmy, something’s wrong.”
Aames also turned his head once, twice, to check on his sister. “You ain’t prego are you?”
Price grimaced at him. Jen only whispered a no, her head between her knees.
“It’s cool if you are.” Aames sighed. “Well, hang back, Jenny, shit. I got Jim here. He can probably shoot better than any of us if things go south.” Aames winked. “I can trust you, right Price? Heh. Right Price, the Price is right! Trustworthy fella used to be fucking twelve. I must be insane.”
“This occurs to you only now,” Price said. “Months and you don’t say shit.” He drew his pistol and slid it over Aames thigh. “I look dumb to you, Tone? You say that shit with three spare dudes outside, you think I don’t smell a set up?” He pushed the barrel’s eye close to Aames’ balls. “If I blow your nuts off, will you believe I’m not fucking twelve anymore?”
Aames, rather than getting rattled, laughed even harder. “Jen, I changed my mind about him. I like you, Jim. Jimmy! And Jenn-ay! C’mon bubba, you’re making my nuts crawl. Don’t be mad. This is a big deal! I got a lot of money in my pocket today. And look at that beautiful motherfucker!”
Aames pulled up a few feet away from a parked utility van with the side door open. The machine was right there, smaller than Jen had imagined, resembling some kind of baking tool. There was dust on it, dust Jen seriously doubted was flour. Jake and Chris and Roger were standing around the opening, smoking a joint. Judging by the sheen of their skin, they’d been hitting a lot of other things before they decided to switch from missiles to guns.
Aames noticed as well. “See their eyes, Jim? Don’t let me get shot. Jen?”
Jen panted, holding her belly. “I need a minute, Tony.”
Aames opened the door, Price did not hesitate or look back at Jen when he opened the door. He knew what time it was. Chris offered the joint to Aames, who began smoking on it with no intention of giving it back. Everyone was armed, chatting. Moods seemed jolly, and Aames was excited about his purchase.
Excellent. She slid the phone out of her back pocket. No members of the criminal sausage fest were paying attention to her, or the SUV. Just a chick having chick problems, yeah, big laughs right, bleed for a week and don’t die. Self-absorbed clowns. She got the picture without a single problem.
Now Jen hesitated. Did she really want to do this to her brother for hitting her? How much time would he get? Manufacture is a possible life sentence, especially if you’re making opioids but she didn’t know what kind of time you could get for just buying a tablet press.
When she sent it, she knew that maybe this would be a good change for all three of them. Aames had done three years in state jail for possession of heroin a few years ago. Another five or six wouldn’t hurt. And she would visit him, explain herself, maybe marry Jim and build a life in time. And then she knew the real reason she sent it was knowing that unless she excised Aames from her life, he’d drag her into far worse than a pill maker one day.
***
“That’s the real deal Holy Feel,” Hugo said to his partner Moreno. “Do we recognize any of these other dumbasses?” He pointed to a dark-skinned man in a white tee-shirt and leather jacket, a gold chain dangling around his bull neck. “I want to know which dumbass he is. That’s our salesman for sure.”
“You send it to the DA?” Moreno asked.
“Yeah. He’s going to greenlight us too, and quick. You ready?”
Moreno nodded. When Hugo’s phone buzzed an affirmative from the D.A., he called it in.
***
When the four men saw the cops, they froze. Price tried to look shocked, and he was, a bit—ten cars he counted before the shit hit the fan, two of them pulling up fast behind Jen in the SUV.
“You goddamn cunt,” Aames said to Price. He pulled his gun.
Price didn’t get a chance to lie. “Freeze, Aames!” Hugo cried.
“How’s that cop know my name, Jim?” The gun jittered in Aames’ hand.
“Bitch ass mutha—” This came from Chris. He made the mistake of drawing on Price and Moreno, a crack shot, fired into his thigh. The other screaming cops began firing.
Jake screamed and slapped his own face against the dirt. His arms jutted out from either side of his body, and he screamed, “I’m down, I’m down! I ain’t getting up, I surrender!”
Roger tried to run and was shot in the calves. Cops swarmed him as he screamed. They wrenched his arms behind his back, the zip-ties whirred over his wrists.
Aames never stopped staring at Price even when Hugo put his arms behind his back for him and applied the zip ties. He did not bother to resist. “This is what happens when you think you got friends. You goddamn sumbitch. I get out, you know what time it is. You think I’ll forgive and forget you got some whole other sh—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what you do,” Price said. “But you’re not doing it to Jen anymore. She wants a life. Enjoy your new one.”
Aames clicked his tongue. “Alright.” Hugo jerked him away from Price. “Enjoy what’s left of yours, boy.”
“One more word, and you’re having a mishap,” Hugo said. “Think I’m playing, go on.” Hugo dragged Aames to the cruiser and urged him into the backseat. Aames ducked and sat hard against the plastic bucket, still watching Price.
“I got friends too, Lord Jim,” Aames called now that he was no longer in danger of any mishaps. “Believe that. “Wait till you meet him.”
Jen joined Price. He looked at her, and back to Aames.
“He knows.” She kissed Price on the neck. “What’s the point of hiding?”
“How’s your belly, sis?” Aames asked. “You bitch ass Persephone. You’re not safe either.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hugo said. “Price, get out of here.”
He and Jen got in the SUV and Price pushed the start button. The cocky Aames had left the keys in the console, never expecting this to happen. Why shouldn’t he have left them there? By now, they should have loaded up and gone. In a way, they had and were, and did now.
“It’ll be all right,” Price told Jen. “We’re going to be just fine.”
She said nothing. Price wasn’t worried. He drove them out of the ghetto and back to his place where they could forget that they’d opened up a large can of invisible, bloody worms. Hugo would look out. Price would figure something out. Private detection sounded cool. And he had plenty of time to make lawful connections of his own while Aames walked around the cage and made his criminal ones. Which he would. Aames was not to be taken lightly.
Jen slept in the shotgun seat and when Price looked at her face, he knew he wasn’t to be taken lightly, either. He wasn’t much different than Aames, and no better as a man. Maybe all life was just a matter of poles and how they shift and our reactions to that movement, arbitrary at the end of the day. Hell, Price had never truly been a cop. Nor did he feel self-righteous for busting Aames. More like apologetic. And he had no urge to be reinstated. An opportunity to free Jen had knocked. That was all.
Christ. He didn’t really even realize he was doing it until it was done.
Ah, to hell with it. Price felt like a taco, so he hit the closest drive-thru. Jen slept all the way home.
[Image Credit : Photo by Nick Andréka on Unsplash ]
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